Hidden Heritage (26 page)

I glanced at Josie. Of course. Of course my stepdaughter would agree to be Maria's lawyer if she were going to help abused women! Elizabeth's life's work revolved around rescuing lost souls.

“You bitch,” George said, glaring at Maria. “You conniving bitch. You know Francesca never intended to sell so much as one acre of this land.”

“Don't you call me a bitch.” Looking like a shocked schoolmarm, Maria hands dove for a pocket in her pants and she pulled out her rosary. She kissed the cross. Out of meanness, I suspected, and quickly established that God was on her side.

The lawyer from the Benedictine Convent looked stunned. Cecilia rose. “How did this happen?” Her voice quavered. “This cannot be God's will that this intruder was allowed to turn Francesca against her own family.” She turned toward the sister-in-law she despised. “Maria, I would never, never allow our land to be sold for any reason. You know Victor would want to keep everything intact. I wanted to use the Old House as a haven for unwed mothers and remodel the main house into a chapel.”

Her soft voice made her bold words all the more startling. “We will challenge this will. All of the land will go to the glory of God.” The Benedictine lawyer beamed at her.

“And you're a bitch, too,” George yelled. “Where will my family go? What will we do?”

“I believe all this is premature.” We turned to look at the lawyer for the United States government. “We plan to challenge this bequest. There was no valid claim to this land in the first place. This issue must proceed through the courts.”

Until the cows come home
, I thought. As it always has done. The government would never acknowledge the Diaz family's ownership. Even now, I was sure there was a platoon of lawyers poring over the language of the Louisiana Purchase. Did Napoleon have the right to sell land belonging to Spanish land grant families? Had the government agreed where the Loisel grant was located?

My blood pressure spiked. “Now wait just a minute here. All this is mine to decide. Gentlemen. Ladies. The will has been read. I have a great many decisions to make. Make no mistake, this is truly Francesca's last will and testament. The discussion going on right now will not alter one single fact. And it should be kept within the family.” I whirled and faced the lawyer for the government. “And your presence here today is beyond contempt.”

Josie and I left the room.

***

My cell phone rang a couple of miles later.

“The lawyer we sent just called.” Frank Dimon was jubilant. “Talk about an incredible break. We can put an end to a bunch of foolishness in very short order. First off, of course, is to cease and desist with that ridiculous lawsuit. Secondly, since you didn't have sense enough to keep all of this out of the papers, some really big players had shown interest in acquiring some of that land. God, the prospects for development alone stagger the imagination. The government will pay you a reasonable settlement sum with you agreeing to a cease-and-desist order relinquishing all claims and this whole issue will be put to death.”

“Over my dead body.” I was so angry I pulled over. “The government doesn't have the right to order me to cease and desist anything.”

“Be reasonable. You can't go up against the United States government. This is not some little local issue. This will involve state and federal courts. It could go on for years.”

“It already has.” I hung up.

***

I stayed home and took walks, listened to music, and mulled over all the ramifications of the will. Margaret had rounded up help for the historical society and Sam definitely was The Man. He tried not to let it go to his head when several sheriffs in Northwest Kansas called him for consultations.

Keith came over and sat beside me on the sofa. “Baby got the blues?”

“Too many blessings. I'm not used to them.” I smiled and laid my head on his shoulder. “I honestly don't know what to do. According to the will I'm supposed to continue the lawsuit, but I don't know how I can.”

He looked relieved. “I can't decide for you, honey. But one thing is for sure, suing the government would break us.”

“Or anyone else. But one family managed to do it for God only knows how long.”

“And it caused nothing but grief. You could sell some of the land and give deserving young men a toehold.”

“Yes. But according to Elizabeth, even the claim to Roswell County might be shaky.”

“While you are working this through, have you thought about setting up a foundation to study Francesca's healing methods and to maintain the plants?”

“That's a good idea. But I'm at the point where I just barely trust anyone to actually serve as officers. But I've come to one decision. I want George Perez and his family to keep living there so the place won't go to hell. Cecilia won't be a problem. I'll bet she moves to a convent by the end of the year.”

“Maria?”

“I don't care about Maria. She has no basis for a claim to anything. She has a nice little house of her own.”

Keith looked worried.

“Francesca was basically a Buffalo Commons woman. I think deep in her heart she honestly thought not an acre of sod should ever have been broken.”

“You know how I feel about that. But even if you form a foundation and appoint officers, they have to be strong enough to take a lot of flak, and if you persist with a lawsuit, you need to find a board chairman with access to power and who is one tough son-of-a-bitch.”

“Okay. I just don't want this to work a hardship on our family.”

***

The right person to head the foundation occurred to me in the middle of the night: The Right Reverend Ignatius P. Talesbury. The Catholic priest, turned Episcopal, who had fought his way through double layers of bureaucracy to rescue African child soldiers.

The combined power and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. That should do it.

I went out to Saint Helena the next morning. As I had predicted, his ire was raised at once at the thought of someone developing Kansas land. Talesbury had singlehandedly fought off an attempt to thwart a crooked nephew's attempt to lease his land to a wind farm. He understood doing battle against the forces of evil. It only took him the rest of the day to make up his mind.

“But I'll need help,” he said when he called. “I'm a man of action, and researching historical documents is not one of my skills. Someone needs to come up with the basis for the land grants.”

“I know just the person.”

***

I called Jane Jordan.

“Yes. Oh, yes. It will be a chance to make up for everything my family has done.”

“You didn't do those things. You shouldn't feel guilty.”

“But I do.”

“Put that out of your mind. Just come to the historical society Monday morning and I'll get you started.”

“How far back do you want me to go?”

“The Loisel fortune was sort of settled in 1858 in favor of the Loisel Family, but the terms were a mess. The “any vacant lands” were never specified. You'll need to track that down if possible. Then we need to dig up information about the Montoya land grant.”

She cleared her throat. “Do you know the first Spanish land grants in Kansas go back to the late 1500s? After the Coronado Expedition in 1541? When we were part of New Mexico? Some of Kansas, that is.”

I started laughing. “No, I didn't know.” Every schoolchild in Kansas knew about Coronado. There were a number of Spanish artifacts in Kansas museums. “Wow! That's a couple of centuries before the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Coronado. That should keep you busy.”

“A lot of those records were burned in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Francesca's deed and map would sell for a fortune to collectors, even if the claim is useless.”

“It won't be. I'm sure of that.”

I would have a chairman with brass balls and a researcher second-to-none. Let the games begin.

***

It was early evening. Still too hot to go outside. I listened to Keith play, but was too distracted to pay much attention. Josie's words had stung. I couldn't get them out of my mind. I needed to decide. What I did with my life was a choice. It wasn't smart to try to cling to two full-time jobs.

Keith laid down his guitar and reached for his drink. “You're thinking. That's not always good news.”

“It is in this case.”

Margaret loved running the day-to-day operations of the historical society. The place just hummed now due to unexpected developments. Angie had started helping Margaret while I was lying in my drug-induced haze. My stepdaughter could soothe anyone. She had spent her life doing so. Compared to Angie's husband, Margaret was child's play. She alternated between working at the historical society and tending to the flowers at the compound.

Talesbury knew what to do with injured souls. It was his specialty. Through working with his African boys who were now helping maintain Francesca's elaborate herb garden, Angie was regaining her emotional health. There was always a child trailing after her.

Jane Jordan threw herself into the research and came to the historical society every day. She ran around like a little chihuahua, anxiously watching for affirmation from Margaret.

She was never late. Never careless. Didn't have a mouth on her.

Margaret was ecstatic.

With three other women there every day, the historical society was no longer my private haven. But none of the three were trained historians. I shuddered at the thought of turning Margaret loose to collect oral histories.

Family histories were my specialty and my first love. I would continue to do that and turn over to my eager staff the budgets, politics, publicity, fair booths and floats, grant applications, research solicitation, software problems, and general hassles.

But bottom line, I wanted to stay in law enforcement. For this county. For Northwest Kansas.

“You'll be shocked,” I warned Keith. “Like totally.”

“Try me. It takes a lot to shock me nowadays.”

“I want to proceed with the regional law enforcement center and I want to be the director.”

“You're right. I'm shocked.”

“I have my own ideas for a regional system. It's a far cry from what Dimon has in mind, but it would work. It would stave off consolidation. Wise old men who keep getting reelected would still have their rightful place. After all, county had just skunked state. Sam Abbott outwitted Dimon and a team of investigators.”

“And I could go back to doing what I do best. Vet work and farming.”

“You've retired from vet work, remember?”

“Yeah, right.”

“I want to begin with a forensics lab and I want you and Tom to design it. Then we'll tackle all the obsolete systems in Sam's office. He will persuade the others to do the same so they will be connected to regional data bases. It's upgrade by stealth. One piece of equipment at a time.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me, Lottie. Super, in fact.”

I smiled. His relief was all too evident. I was more at home with law enforcement than my husband and I think he knew that. I had an intuitive feel for when to push and when to step back. Keith was more black and white. Right was right and wrong was wrong. Keith thought someone should pay a steep price for breaking the law. But I had been trained by the best. Sam Abbott had a sixth sense about administering justice.

“You're going to be in a higher-risk position than working at the historical society.”

“I know. I've thought about that. Are you okay with this?” I watched his face. He was keeping it neutral. I knew it was because he thought he should. The right thing to do and all that. “Honey, you've got to promise not to hover.”

He let out a poof of air, looked at me with raised eyebrows and a little half-smile and didn't bother to answer.

“I'll call Dimon tomorrow and tell him Northwest Kansas is planning its own regional center, without the help of Topeka.”

“He won't appreciate that. There were a lot of jobs at stake.”

***

I pasted the final story into the first volume of the Carlton County history books. Already, families who had neglected getting material in on time were clamoring for volume two and we had decided to do it. Jane was a meticulous proofreader and indexer. Margaret charged right into publicity and planning, and Angie was a natural for public relations and customer service, and loved the artistic side of creating a book.

They all understood they were not to conduct interviews and collect oral histories. I was just a phone call away.

I locked my office and walked down the stairs. Outside, I looked up at the sky.

There was a good chance it was going to rain.

Author's Notes

Hidden Heritage
is the third mystery in the Lottie Albright series. These notes are an attempt to sort fact from fiction because this book is such a curious blend of both.

During my first tour of Sheridan County, led by Evelyn Walden and Marilyn Carder, I fell in love with an enormous cottonwood on the old Twell Ranch. Outside of the California redwoods, I had never seen such a magnificent tree. I later read it really was the largest in Kansas. I was mesmerized by the constant ripples of silver, the peace generated by surrounding cottonwoods, and the creek running through this shaded heaven. I wanted to stay there.

Sears Roebuck houses were real. The package contained everything necessary down to the last nail. They were a godsend for treeless prairie towns. Eastern Kansas has an abundance of timber and there weren't as many sold there.

Surprise! Madstones were real too and I really, really want one. Provided it's from a white albino deer. Madstones are listed in my old huge Webster's dictionary, but not in my new Collegiate Edition.

A good many Americans joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. At that time the organization was violently anti-Catholic. In fact, I found the old KKK poem at the Kansas Historical Society.

Believe it or not the Regis Loisel lawsuit was real. It went on for three generations. Senator John Ingalls wrote about Loisel and the endless litigation in his extensive personal writings. Ingalls despised Spaniards and believed the “haughty hildago with the sable drooping plume and subtle rapier was the predecessor of the border ruffian, the jay hawker, and the bullwhacker.”

Most of the records of Spanish land grants in “Louisiana” were destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but Coronado really did issue land grants in Kansas.Two days before I turned in the final manuscript for
Hidden Heritage,
an old Spanish family sued the government over the very same land grant issues dealt with in my book. Ironically, I had used their name. It is changed in this book.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau was a secret agreement of 1762 in which
France
ceded
Louisiana (New France)
to
Spain
. The treaty followed the last battle in the
French and Indian War
in North America. This treaty was kept secret even during the French negotiation and signing of the
Treaty of Paris (1763)
, which ended the war with Britain.

Feel free to visit my website,
www.charlottehinger
.com
, if you have questions or comments about historical issues in
Hidden Heritage.
However, although I learned a lot about herbs and plants I will not recommend treatments and remedies, whether healing or magical.